Kianga
by Coral Champagne
Summary: Salvatore Vincenzo Carpaggio had not planned on dying that morning.


Salvatore Vincenzo Carpaggio had not planned on dying that morning.

He had awoken early – startled into consciousness. He sat up, his heart pounding and his mouth dry, and looked around, searching for what had awoken him so violently; but the air was silent, and the room was still dark, peaceful and cool. The luminous hands of the alarm clock next to the bed glowed ten after five, and cast an eerie green light across the floor. Salvatore watched as a small troupe of ants marched in line through the gloom, disappearing into the shade of a lonely discarded boot. Making a mental note to check and empty that particular boot in the morning before he wore it, he sighed, turned his pillow over and pressed the cold side into his cheek, shut his eyes and drifted back to sleep.

Salvatore woke a few hours later, momentarily dizzy by a blistering heat that radiated from his body. His limbs felt as though they were on fire and the sheets beneath him were drenched with sweat. For a moment, Salvatore wondered whether he had been bitten by one of the rogue boot-ants, and whether the heat in his body was a result of the poison from their pincers coursing through his veins. But he had not been bitten, and it was not the bite of a boot-dwelling ant that killed Salvatore that day.

He noticed that the air was no longer cool and comfortable, but dry and stifling. The air conditioning machine over the bed had stopped its pleasant hum and was defiantly quiet. With the sun already high in the sky, and shining on to his face through the gap in the blinds, the heat was almost unbearable. Wiping his brow, he drank long and deep from the bottle of water next to the bed. The lukewarm liquid provided only momentary relief.

Salvatore had been warned against drinking tap water in a foreign county for risk of cholera, and many other diseases that the doctor had recited gleefully while injecting his arm with a small dose of yellow fever to combat any potential illness he might receive from a bite from a rogue mosquito. Although Salvatore purchased bottled water, there was always the risk that the bottle had been tampered with. The particular bottle that Salvatore was drinking from at that moment was slightly contaminated. Little did Salvatore know, it was refilled by a small boy from a public toilet tap, before selling it to a friend who resealed the bottle and sold to a tour guide, who in turn sold it to Salvatore when he complained he was thirsty. However, although the contents of the bottle would have caused an upset stomach a few hours later, it was not this bottle of contaminated water that killed Salvatore.

"Fucking…fucking…stupid…" the angry mumble of obscenities from behind him made him smile. He turned, amused, to see his wife cursing struggling with the mosquito net that had fallen down from its position in the night. She sat up, exasperated, pulling the net away from her face. Her usual pale Irish skin was flushed with the heat, and her black curls stuck to her forehead. Beads of sweat trickled down her neck as she stretched her arms above her head. Salvatore admired her through sleepy eyes – his beautiful Siobhan, a real head turner, two children later and her thirty year old body was as lithe and toned as it was before she had given up pole dancing.

Mrs Siobhan Carpaggio was born Siobhan Eleanor Mary McBride; a petulant girl who had grown up to be a socialite with a fiery temper and a penchant for luxury. She spent most of her time with her gym bunny friends, drinking fancy cocktails and spending extortionate amounts of money on shoes with extortionately sized heels.

Luxury came upon Siobhan in a fairy-tale manner. She was born on a farm in rural Ireland, ran away from home as soon as she turned sixteen, and lived in London for a year before scraping together enough cash for one-way ticket to the America. Arriving penniless but pretty, she worked in pubs and clubs, dancing and singing. She met Salvatore in the Big Apple in an ironic, almost film-worthy story – Salvatore was fifteen years her senior, from a rich Italian American family, and worked on Wall Street – strong, good looking and successful; Siobhan was then an exotic dancer searching for her big break in the big city. Salvatore had divorced his first wife after she failed to give him children, became bored of the women he encountered in his day to day business, and desired a change – Siobhan's tantrums and drama would have made most men run for the hills, but Salvatore relished the challenge and fell in love with Siobhan's beauty and bitchiness. Siobhan fell in love with Salvatore's bank balance.

They married within six months in a lavish ceremony, and Siobhan demanded a huge apartment in the centre of Manhattan, where she spent her days hosting parties and entertaining friends. She didn't want children – Salvatore had to beg and bargain with her for their first child, and the second was an unwelcome accident fathered by another man, although Salvatore was blissfully unaware. Siobhan didn't have much time for her children, two beautiful dark haired little boys. Their eldest child, Rocco, was the image of Salvatore, with his deep brown laughing eyes and olive Italian skin that made him looked permanently suntanned. Gianni, the younger, resembled Siobhan – he was pale, with curls that grew in a mop around his freckled face. They were loud and boisterous and naughty. Their mother secretly wished that they were girls.

Salvatore would have liked a daughter to 'complete' their little family, but Siobhan declared that her body had been ruined by the birth of his sons, insisting that Salvatore had a vasectomy, although she seldom let Salvatore touch her – usually only when he arrived home with a small, velvet box containing dainty precious metal from New York's finest jewellers. Salvatore was promoted and offered a job in San Francisco – Siobhan encouraged him to take it, but refused to move from her luxury lifestyle in the big bright city. Salvatore worked away most nights while Siobhan 'entertained' various male friends from the comfort of her magnificent apartment. Salvatore had no doubts or suspicions to Siobhan's fidelity, assuming she had everything she wanted and more, but after the exhausting process of divorcing his first wife, had specified in their rigid pre-nuptial agreement that should they divorce, she would be left with no rights to his earnings. While Siobhan had initially fancied Salvatore, after a few years she had become tired of being his trophy wife. His looks were quickly fading and his body had become soft and paunchy. Her lust had vanished, and although she was fond of him, she did often dream of a life without Salvatore; dreaming of the day she would receive a telephone call to say Salvatore had dropped dead of some genetic disease – leaving her free to claim his enormous life insurance pay-out. Even though Siobhan had just awoken from a dream in which she had killed Salvatore by pushing him in the path of a savage lion, it was not his grumpy wife, nor a hungry lion, that killed Salvatore that day.

Siobhan yawned and stretched. Her outstretched fingers brushed against a small blue fly, which buzzed angrily and scuttled across her hand. She gave a shriek and slapped at the insect, which promptly disappeared under the bed. "I bloody hate Africa!" she announced crossly, "…and its horrible heat, and all its bloody horrible disease filled creatures!"

She picked up the remote control for the air conditioning and jabbed at it impatiently until the whir of the machine indicated that it was switched on. A cool breeze washed over her, but it did not ease her bad mood. Salvatore stroked her hand, looking at her like a lovesick puppy and she resented it, withdrawing her hand irritably. She swung her legs from the bed and padded into the bathroom. Salvatore watched her appreciatively. She was perfection in his eyes. It was not often he saw her without makeup, but secretly he loved her most first thing in the morning, with her tousled hair and wide eyes, and knew he was the envy of other men. She was wearing a black vest that accentuated her pale skin, and a pair of tiny blue shorts, and she was acutely aware of Salvatore ogling her from the bed. Siobhan splashed cold water on to her face, vaguely recalling that it had been around nearly two months since they had had sex, and wondering how much longer Salvatore could last without screwing someone else. She knew she was Salvatore's dream girl and he was hopelessly devoted to her in a way that he had never been with anyone else, but that didn't stop the hazy image of the pre-nup floating into her mind, and she shook her head hard. She couldn't let his affections slide; she couldn't let him fall for someone else just because she was bored of the marital bed.

Her fears were not unwarranted. She knew Salvatore had not been faithful to his first wife, although understood their situation was different. The previous Mrs Carpaggio was around ten years older than Siobhan. Salvatore rarely spoke about his first wife, Annabelle, despite being married to her for almost a decade. Siobhan had never met her, but knew that Annabelle was blonde and had been pretty once upon a time. Siobhan feigned disinterest, but was secretly curious about the 'other woman'. She knew Annabelle was the closest thing Salvatore had to a childhood sweetheart. They dated on and off throughout their teens. She fell pregnant at eighteen, and pressured a reluctant Salvatore into a marriage he did not want. After she miscarried, she became depressed and Salvatore became impatient. He paid for IVF treatment, to no avail. His attraction to her waned as her depression grew and she gained weight; after his first indiscretion at an office party, he realised that he was bored by Annabelle, and she him. She filed for divorce after she caught him in bed with two of her friends.

Salvatore had declared himself completely and utterly captivated by Siobhan in a way he had never felt with Annabelle, and she believed him, but understood too well the carnal needs of a man. Reluctantly she undressed, spritzed herself with Chanel, headed back to the bed and in to his open arms. Salvatore was not a fit man and it was still very hot in the room– it would be over quickly. As she lay there listlessly while Salvatore moved around on top of her, she imagined that he was overcome by a heart attack and died there and then. She imagined getting the first plane home, hosting a lavish funeral party, and the New York Times printing a sad story of the wealthy widow. She saw herself on the front page, haughty looking, wearing a slinky Gucci black dress and sunglasses, and cradling her beautiful doe-eyed sons, who were dressed in matching black suits. She would finally meet Annabelle and reminisce about their shared husband. She imagined her life without Salvatore on a regular basis – but in this instance, she did feel a small pang of guilt as he whispered in her ear how much he loved her.

As Siobhan had predicted, it was over in minutes. Salvatore rolled out of bed panting, with a spring in his step and threw back the sash, letting the sunlight pour into the room. Siobhan groaned and rolled over, shielding her white body from the light. She hoped Salvatore would leave her to sleep. She didn't want to get up and go outside. Africa did not agree with her. Salvatore's firm had business opportunities in the area, which happened to be close to where Siobhan's sister lived, and he had managed to talk her into a visit. Bloody Bernadette, whose husband had landed a job with a petrol company, which naturally meant that her sister had to uproot her family and move to Africa. Kenya of all places – completely lacking in any form of civilisation. Bernadette had lived in Kenya for years now, and had always begged her only sister to come and visit. Siobhan had point blank refused until Salvatore had agreed to take their sons to meet Bernadette's daughter – their only cousin. Siobhan adamantly rebuffed the idea until Salvatore promised to pay for her skiing holiday the month after with some of her girlfriends. Mistake. She hated the heat, she hated the food, she hated the way she was the only white woman in the vicinity apart from Bernadette and her daughter Aoife – it made her feel uneasy. Bernadette's house, although large and airy and in extensive gated grounds, seem to be constantly filled with sand and lizards. Siobhan felt permanently annoyed – if it wasn't the heat, it was the dust which made her feel dirty, or the lack of clean water which made her feel ill, or the air conditioning that kept turning off during the night - she voiced her complaints loudly. They were staying in the guest wing of the house, which was separate from the main building, and although this gave them extra privacy, it meant that the electricity was prone to cutting out, which did nothing to improve Siobhan's ever growing headache that was Africa.

Siobhan curled up in the bed as Salvatore strode whistling out of the bathroom. Only four more days to endue, then they would be on the plane back to the good old US and A. For Siobhan, it couldn't come quickly enough. Bernadette, on the other hand, had adapted well – Africa suited her. Growing up, she had had her sister's fiery temper and the same dreams of glamour and glory, but the slow moving African lifestyle had mellowed her considerably, and she was swayed by little, becoming accustomed to the lonely lifestyle she now had, as her husband worked round the clock. Siobhan had marvelled with an element of disdain at how unkept her once glamorous older sister had become – the sun had burned her fair skin a leathery brown, her manicured hands were now rough and calloused from the sun, and she had grown fat through lack of activity. Yet she was happy in her own little world; homeschooling her daughter seemed to be her only interest. Little Aoife was a sweet child of around fifteen, very shy and quiet – not a pretty girl, having inherited her father's looks. Neither Siobhan nor Salvatore were particularly fond of Bernadette's husband Tim, who they quickly realised was potentially the most boring man they had ever had the pleasure to meet. Tim was a very thin, tedious man who looked down his bespectacled nose at his in-laws, and seemed to strongly resent sharing his house with his extended family, particular a pair of young naughty boys who seemed to relish in making Tim so angry that his face turned a beetroot purple.

A tentative knock on the door brought Siobhan out of her daydream and she tutted loudly. Salvatore opened the door, and her sons Gianni and Rocco hurried in to the room with wide eyes, chattering about a yellow bird that they had seen outside. Salvatore was a good father to his two boys, enjoying the time he was spending with them out of the office, and giving them the love and attention that they did not receive from their mother. Their nanny had not accompanied them on the trip, and Siobhan was finding their constant need for attention overwhelming.

She buried her head under the blankets as Salvatore gently escorted the children from the room to let his irritable wife sleep a little longer. He heard a muffled shriek and a cry from down the hall, and a thump, and the boys' faces lit up. The previous morning a monkey had climbed in through the window, and the boys had watched gleefully as their uncle had chased him round the house with a broom. They ran ahead and tried to push open the heavy door, hoping to be greeted with a similar scene. They stopped dead. Then the peace was broken by a piercing scream; then a long, drawn out agonised wail as Salvatore stepped up behind them and opened the door.

There, Salvatore witnessed a most horrific scene that burned into his brain. He saw Aoife, her face contorted, and he froze. Rocco spun on his heel and began to run back towards his mother's bedroom. Five year old Gianni simply stood there open mouthed, watching with disbelief as his father ran into the room and grabbed a man who was standing there with his back to them, doing unspeakable things to his cousin Aoife that Gianni was too young to understand. Gianni hesitated, turned away, looked back and gasped as Salvatore was knocked to the ground and stabbed through the heart with a long spear by four men with dark faces.


End file.
